Page:Bible testimony, on abstinence from the flesh of animals as food.pdf/24

 being allowed, and others interdicted, we do not so clearly see, nor with such facility understand that we are thereby prohibited from easing, or allowed to eat their  or produce, that is to say, their. The cause of this "slowness of heart to believe," and unwillingness to admit the force of this important truth is obvious;—in the present depraved state of human appetite and human feeling we behold mankind every where around us, like so many, tearing and devouring with the greatest avidity, the mangled limbs of butchered animals; but had we been placed in community with the Brahmins of Hindostan and imbibed from infancy their mild and humane principles, we should never have believed ourselves tolerated, by the recorded distinction between the clean and unclean in the Livitical Law, to feed on the of a portion of animated existence. For it is unquestionably true that as in the case of "the tree of knowledge," the of the tree was meant, so in that of the allowed and forbidden animals, the  of the clean was allowed, but that of the unclean interdicted.

Were it here requisite, or if time permitted we might reason in a similar manner in relation to those animated existences comprehended in the law that do not come within the limits of the preceeding remarks; but our time will not allow us to go into all the details oi the matter. Reasons, however, equally potent, and consistent with our views of the vegetable character of the aliment of the human species, can readily be assigned, for all the distinctions enumerated.

Another objection will probably be raised on the misapprehended testimony of the Bible respecting the sacrificial worship of the Jews. It will perhaps be contendecd that the Jews, by the command of, offered animals in sacrifice, and eat of their religious offerings. We arc ready to admit that they offered sacrifices, and ate of that